Dr Astrid Schepman

Senior Lecturer

Astrid took her first degree ("Drs", equivalent to Masters) at the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands (1989) with a year as a Harting Scholar at University College London (Phonetics and Linguistics, 1986-87). Following a period working in the television industry in London in sound editing and sound directing, translating, subtitling, and managing language adaptation, she then took her MSc in the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology at the University of Sussex (1992), followed by D.Phil. in the same lab (funded by SERC / EPSRC) investigating the role of prosody in the syntactic parsing and comprehension of spoken sentences (1997).

Qualifications

Astrid took her undergraduate degree ("Drs") at the University of Nijmegen (The Netherlands) with a year at University College London (Linguistics and Phonetics). Following a period working in the television industry in London in sound editing, translating and language adaptation, she then took her MSc in the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology at the University of Sussex, followed by D.Phil. in the same lab (funded by SERC / EPSRC) investigating the role of prosody in the syntactic parsing and comprehension of spoken sentences.

This was followed by a post-doctoral position at the University of Edinburgh which investigated the timing of intonation in English and Dutch. Astrid then took up a lectureship at the University of Abertay Dundee where she was also programme tutor for Psychology and British Psychological Society Accreditation Tutor. This was followed by a lectureship at the University of Bradford. Astrid took up her senior lectureship at the University of Chester in September 2008.

Overview

Astrid Schepman took up her senior lectureship at the University of Chester in September 2008. Before arriving at Chester, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh with Professor D. R. Ladd, investigating the timing of intonation in English and Dutch (1998-2000). She then worked as a lecturer in psychology at the University of Abertay Dundee, where she was also programme leader for Psychology, and British Psychological Society Accreditation Tutor (2000-2006), and as a lecturer in psychology at the University of Bradford (2006-2008).

In her additional roles, Astrid is the Higher Education Academy Link for the department, and a departmental Learning and Information Services representative. She developed and coordinates the Study Year Abroad for psychology, and is involved with the development of postgraduate programmes and staff mentoring. She acts as peer reviewer for a range of academic journals and reviews research funding applications. Astrid is the external examiner for MA programmes in Linguistics, Bilingualism and Cognitive Linguistics at the University of Bangor. Astrid also has PhD examining experience.

Email: a.schepman@chester.ac.uk

Webpages:

www.lifesci.sussex.ac.uk/home/Astrid_Schepman/

www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~astrid/

Twitter: Astrid Schepman tweets about Brains & minds, neuropsychology, language & speech, prosody, cognition, learning, emotion, and interpersonal behaviour, under the name of @astridschep [http://twitter.com/#!/astridschep]

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Teaching

At undergraduate level, Astrid Schepman is currently co-module leader on third-year Biological Psychology and teaches on second-year Cognitive Psychology. She also provides teaching input on second-year Forensic Psychology and first-year Applications of Psychology in Education, as well as providing project supervision for final-year Research Dissertations.

Astrid also teaches at postgraduate level, currently providing contributions to Research Methods.

Astrid’s past teaching experience includes Research Methods and Statistics, Developmental Psychology, Neuropsychology, and the Psychology of Language.

Research

Astrid Schepman is interested in applied and theoretical cognitive and biological psychology. Astrid's research interests currently include psycholinguistics (prosody, speech, syntactic parsing, syntactic priming, and implicit learning in language), hemispheric specialisation / laterality, and emotion (particularly vocal emotion production and perception, emotion regulation, emotion and cognition, emotional empathy). Astrid has been involved in pedagogy projects examining learning at Higher Education level (metacognition, self-regulated learning, reflection. A recent project investigated mobile learning using Evernote http://www.evernote.com in independent study).

Astrid's research has been supported by funding from The British Academy, The Carnegie Trust, The Higher Education Academy Psychology Network, JISC and the Experimental Psychology Society, as well as by internal grants.

Published work

Schepman, A., Rodway, P., Beattie, C., Lambert, J. (2012). An observational study of undergraduate students’ adoption of (mobile) note-taking software. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(2), 308 – 317. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2011.09.014.

Rodway, P., Schepman, A. and Lambert, J. (in press, 2011). Preferring the one in the middle: Further evidence for the center-stage effect. Applied Cognitive Psychology. DOI: 10.1002/acp.1812.

Schepman, A., Rodway, P., Beattie, C. and Lambert, J. (2011). Students’ use of Evernote note-taking software on mobile and non-mobile platforms: an observational study. University of Chester 9^th Annual Staff Conference, 14 September 2011.

Brennand, R., Schepman, A. & Rodway, P. (2011). Vocal emotion perception in pseudo-sentences by secondary-school children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 5(4), 1567-1573. doi:10.1016/j.rasd.2011.03.002.

Schepman, A., Rodway, P. and Lloyd, J. (2010). Effect of sex on lateralisation of vocal emotion perception. 27th Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society Cognitive Section, Cardiff, 6-8 September 2010.

Schepman, A., Rodway, P. David Reynolds, D., Coleman, G., and Hartley, P. (2010). The effect of generic and episodic reflection on academic skills: An empirical study. Final Project Report: Higher Education Academy, 15 July 2010.

Schepman, A., Rodway, P. David Reynolds, D., Coleman, G., and Hartley, P. (2010). The effect of generic and episodic reflection on academic skills: An empirical study. Psychology of Learning and Teaching Conference, Edinburgh, 30 June - 2 July 2010.

Schepman, A., Rodway, P. David Reynolds, D., Coleman, G., and Hartley, P. (2010). The effect of generic and episodic reflection on academic skills: An empirical study. Staff conference, Institute for Learning and Teaching, University of Chester.

McWilliam, L., Schepman, A., & Rodway, P. (2009). The linguistic status of text message abbreviations: An exploration using a Stroop task. Computers in Human Behavior, 25(4), 970-974.

Schepman, A. and Rodway, P. and McFarlane, P. (2009). Valence effects in vocal emotion depend on stimulus blocking and sex. Annual Meeting of the British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience, Institute of Child Health, London, 21-23 September 2009.

Schepman, A., Rodway, P. and Reynolds, D. (2009). Metacognition and reflection: pedagogic research using methods from experimental psychology. Staff conference, Institute for Learning and Teaching, University of Chester.

Ladd, D. R., Schepman, A., White, L., May Quarmby, L., & Stackhouse, R. (2009). Structural and dialectal effects on pitch peak alignment in two varieties of British English. Journal of Phonetics, 37, 145-161.

Schepman, A., Rodway, P., and Hartley, P. (2008). The effect of e-portfolios on reflective learning and metacognition. Eighth Residential Seminar, Centre for Recording Achievement, Manchester, 20-21 November 2008.

Rodway, P. and Schepman, A. (2008). The effect of e-portfolios on reflective learning and metacognition. Dissemination event, Distributed e-Learning 2, Higher Education Academy, York.

Rodway, P., Schepman, A. and Hartley, P. (2008). The effect of e-portfolios on reflective learning and metacognition. Psychology of Learning and Teaching Conference, Bath, 1-3 July 2008.

Rodway, P., & Schepman, A. (2007). Valence specific laterality effects in prosody: Expectancy account and the effects of morphed prosody and stimulus lead. Brain and Cognition, 63, 31-41.

Rodway, P., Gillies, K., & Schepman, A. (2006). Vivid Imagers Are Better at Detecting Salient Changes. Journal of Individual Differences, 27, 218-228.

Schepman, A., Lickley, R., & Ladd, D. R. (2006). Effects of vowel length and "right context" on the alignment of Dutch nuclear accents. Journal of Phonetics, 34, 1-28.

Lickley, R., Schepman, A., & Ladd, D. R. (2005). Alignment of "phrase accent" low in Dutch falling rising questions: Theoretical and methodological implications. Language and Speech, 48(2), 157-183.

Dilley, L.C., Ladd, D.R. and Schepman, A. (2005). Alignment of L and H in bitonal pitch accents: Testing two hypotheses. Journal of Phonetics, 33, 115-119.

Ladd, D. R., & Schepman, A. (2003). "Sagging transitions" between high pitch accents in English: Experimental evidence. Journal of Phonetics, 31, 81-112.

Ladd, D.R., Lickley, R. and Schepman, A. (2002). Lab speech is real speech: The case of F0 alignment in Dutch. British Association of Academic Phoneticians, Newcastle, 25-27 March 2002.

Schepman, A., & Rodway, P. (2000). Prosody and On-Line Parsing in Coordination Structures. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, A53, 377-396.

Ladd, D. R., Mennen, I., & Schepman, A. (2000). Phonological conditioning of peak alignment in rising pitch accents in Dutch. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 107, 2685-2696.

Rodway, P., Dienes, Z., & Schepman, A. (2000). The effects of cigarette smoking on negative priming. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 8, 104-111.

Ladd, D. R., Faulkner, D., Faulkner, H., & Schepman, A. (1999). Constant "segmental anchoring" of F0 movements under changes in speech rate. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 106, 1543-1554.

Ladd, D.R. and Schepman, A. (1999). Segmental Anchoring of Tones as a Word-Boundary Correlate in English. Proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 1869-1872.

Ladd, D.R., Mennen, I. and Schepman, A. (1999). The effect of vowel length and syllable structure on the location of pitch peaks in Dutch. AMLaP-99 Conference (Architectures and Mechanisms in Language Processing), Edinburgh.

Rodway, P., Kilbride, M. and Schepman, A. (1999). The effects of offset and spatial separation on identity negative priming. British Psychological Society Cognitive Section, Annual Conference, York.

Rodway, P. and Schepman, A. (1998) Negative priming requires stimulus offsets. Paper presented at Meeting of the Experimental Psychology Society, Cambridge.

Schepman, A. (1997). Verb duration and the time-course of activation of syntactic preferences. Presentation at AMLaP-97 Conference (Architectures and Mechanisms in Language Processing), Edinburgh.

Schepman, A., Altmann, G. and Garnham, A. (1996). The status of prosodic information in early sentence processing: A time-course analysis. Presentation at the Annual Conference on Sentence Processing, City University of New York (CUNY), New York.

Schepman, A., Altmann, G. and Garnham, A. (1995). Prosody and parsing: The status of prosodic cues in sentence processing. Presentation at AMLaP-95 Conference (Architectures and Mechanisms in Language Processing), Edinburgh.